Muriel Barbery Quotes

Quotes about:

Art Assumption Cats Children Dying Emotions Eternity

There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature.

Muriel Barbery

Tree, Feelings, Humanity

43 Copy quote
People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.

Muriel Barbery

Life, Stars, Children

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.15, Gallic Books

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When something is bothering me, I seek refuge. No need to travel far; a trip to the realm of literary memory will suffice. For where can one find more noble distraction, more entertaining company, more delightful enchantment than in literature?

Muriel Barbery

Memories, Enchantment, Needs

Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.96, Gallic Books

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. . . maybe that's what life's all about: there's a lof of despair, but also the odd moments of beauty, where time is no longer the same . . . [like] something suspended . . . an elsewhere . . . an always within a never. Yes, that's is, an always within a never.

Muriel Barbery

Despair, Odd, Moments

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Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty.

Muriel Barbery

Thinking, Way, Grammar

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

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Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time...When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Greatness, Soul

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Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed.

Muriel Barbery

Sleep, Cat, Autumn

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With the exception of love, friendship and the beauty of Art, I don't see much else that can nurture human life.

Muriel Barbery

Art, Friendship Love, Human Life

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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As far as I can see, only psychoanalysis can compete with Christians in their love of drawn-out suffering.

Muriel Barbery

Christian, Suffering, Psychoanalysis

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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Live, or die: mere consequences of what you have built. What matters is building well. So here we are, I've assigned myself a new obligation. I'm going to stop undoing, deconstructing, I'm going to start building. What matters is what you are doing when you die... I want to be building.

Muriel Barbery

What Matters, Want, Building

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

Muriel Barbery

Enchantment, Spirit, Language

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

18 Copy quote
When someone that you love dies..it's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black.

Muriel Barbery

Sky, Black, Burning

124 Copy quote
...we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.

Muriel Barbery

Inspirational, Real, People

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

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Beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It’s the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you see both their beauty and their death. ...Does this mean that this is how we must live our lives? Constantly poised between beauty and death, between movement and its disappearance? Maybe that’s what being alive is all about: so we can track down those moments that are dying.

Muriel Barbery

Mean, Track, Dying

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We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.

Muriel Barbery

Fate, Thinking, Honey

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The real ordeal is not leaving those you love but learning to live without those who don't love you.

Muriel Barbery

Real, Love You, Leaving

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Don't worry Renee, I won't commit suicide and I won't burn a thing. Because from now on, for you, I'll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world.

Muriel Barbery

Suicide, Worry, World

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When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Greatness, Jewels

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Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside she is covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary--and terrible elegant.

Muriel Barbery

Real, Simple, Feelings

72 Copy quote
This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship.

Muriel Barbery

Self, Serenity, Solitude

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

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Colombe Josse is the older Jesse daughter. Colombe Jesse is also a sort of tall blonde leek who dresses like a penniless Bohemian. If there is one thing I despise, it is the perverse affectation of rich people who go around dressing as if they were poor, in second-hand clothes, ill-fitting gray bonnets, socks full of holes, and flowered shirts under threadbare sweaters. Not only is it ugly, it is also insulting: nothing is more despicable than a rich man's scorn for a poor man's longing.

Muriel Barbery

Daughter, Gratitude, Men

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In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

Muriel Barbery

Lying, Believe, Mirrors

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In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured. A few bars of music, rising from an unfamiliar place, a touch of perfection in the flow of human dealings - I lean my head slowly to one side, reflect on the camellia on the moss on the temple, reflect on a cup of tea, while outside the wind is rustling foliage, the forward rush of life is crystalized in a brilliant jewel of a moment that knows neither projects nor future, human destiny is rescued from the pale succession of days, glows with light at last and, surpassing time, warms my tranquil heart.

Muriel Barbery

Heart, Destiny, Jewels

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August, 2006.

16 Copy quote
Because beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you can see both their beauty and their death.

Muriel Barbery

Movement, Ephemeral, Moments

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

4 Copy quote
...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence.

Muriel Barbery

Silence, Needs, Inward

14 Copy quote

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Born: May 28, 1969
Occupation: Novelist
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